MONTGOMERY, Ala. – As a crop duster with a banner saying “Abortion is okay,” hummed above the Capitol, circling back and forth around the governor’s mansion, a group of women below let out a cheer.

“Just another day in Alabama,” said Mia Raven, director of People Organizing for Women’s Empowerment and Rights (POWER) House. “We knew this would pass and we got ready.”

Amanda Reyes, who works with an abortion fund, was wearing an “I’m on the pill” T-shirt, complete with instructions printed on the back detailing how to get a medical abortion. She also looked skyward: “Here it comes again! That’s just the coolest thing.”

Hours after the Alabama Senate voted late Tuesday to ban abortions in almost all circumstances – including in cases of rape and incest – women’s rights activists and pro-choice advocates said the decision to approve the nation’s strictest abortion measure has energized them. Knowing that the bill was designed to challenge Roe v. Wade, they are gearing up for the fight.

Surrounded by posters and signs like “This Clinic Stays Open,” Raven called the passage of Alabama’s restrictive law “totally expected.”

“And totally blatantly unconstitutional,” she said Wednesday outside of Reproductive Health Services, one of three clinics that perform abortions in Alabama. Raven has served as an escort to those seeking abortions here, and a hanger charm dangles from her necklace, displaying the instrument that in the past has been used for abortions that had to be done in secret. “”We are open for women who need abortions. We are fighting. We won’t stop.”

Conservatives and antiabortion activists also were prepared for a battle, celebrating the Alabama vote as a victory for their movement and a step toward a national legal reckoning over abortion. Though not demonstrating in the streets, Alabama’s antiabortion base – which recently helped define the state as officially pro-life at the ballot box – took solace in the fact that the state’s ban on abortion set a new restrictive standard.

“Being a conservative follower of Christ who is pro-life, who believes life begins at conception, this has been what we’ve been longing for,” said Alabama evangelist and minister Scott Dawson, who ran as a GOP candidate for governor in Alabama in 2018. “After years of talk and people campaigning on being pro-life, these Republican senators stood for that in last night’s debate.”

The Senate’s approval of the legislation in a party-line 25-6 vote Tuesday night sent it to Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey’s desk. A Republican who campaigned as an advocate of restrictions on abortion, Ivey has long supported anti-abortion measures in Alabama.

Ivey signed the law Wednesday, saying in a statement that the legislation “stands as a powerful testament to Alabamians’ deeply held belief that every life is precious and that every life is a sacred gift from God.”

Ivey said she recognizes that the bill might be unenforceable because of Roe v. Wade, and she said “we must always respect the authority of the U.S. Supreme Court even when we disagree with their decisions.” She said the sponsors of the bill “believe that it is time, once again, for the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit this important matter, and they believe this act may bring about the best opportunity for this to occur.”

The bill passed after more than four hours of debate. The chamber’s small group of Democrats spoke emotionally on the Senate floor, decrying a bill they said would force crime victims who suffer rapes and incest to give birth to babies that are the progeny of their attackers.

The GOP-dominated Senate voted down an amendment that would have added exceptions for rape and incest – though four Republicans joined Democrats in supporting the amendment, some of whom had said publicly that they were having trouble with the idea of an absolute ban on abortion.

The only exceptions in the bill are in cases when the health of the mother is at risk and if the fetus has a “fatal anomaly” that would cause it to die soon after birth.

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Terri Collins, said it is intended to serve as a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade. The Republican lawmaker said she hopes the bill will establish that personhood begins at conception.

Dawson said those who support restrictions on abortion – even in the case of a woman impregnated by rape or incest – believe that the unborn fetus’ rights must be taken into account, and that this bill is the first step to get to that goal.

Eric Johnston, the chairman and founder of the Alabama Pro-Life Coalition, has been working to make abortion illegal for decades, and he drafted the current measure, aiming for a Supreme Court that he believes will rule against abortion.

“Last year, we decided this is probably the time. The time seems right, and the circumstances seemed right,” Johnston said, noting that he believes federal precedent on abortion is “fraudulent and improper. “Now everyone can see the humanity of the child.”

He said Wednesday that the bill needed to pass in its pure form, with almost no allowed exceptions, or else it wouldn’t send the right message. Johnston said he and other anti-abortion activists spent the weekend calling legislators to shore up the vote against an amendment that would have added those exceptions.

“If this exception was added to the bill, it would have killed the bill,” Johnston said. “Whether you were raped or a victim of incest or get pregnant by consent or accident or even artificial insemination, it’s still a person. We could not argue to the court with a straight face that it’s a person in one instance but not in another.”

Though abortion rights advocates were disappointed in the Senate passing the measure, they said that the move galvanized their movement and that they believe it will draw more public support for abortion rights.

Raven, the founder of POWER, spent the day Wednesday trying to push the message on social media and to patients that “we are still here and not going anywhere.” Her bungalow, POWER House, sits next door to the women’s health clinic in Montgomery, housing women overnight who come here from Alabama’s rural areas. Volunteers work with the women to help them understand their rights, the services available to them, and to help them, too, become advocates.

“And we do it in red-state Alabama,” she said, adding that the governor’s mansion is just three blocks away. “This is what we have been doing for decades. And we want the women of Alabama to know we are here for them.”

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